At the age of 5, Eva became her mother's favorite
photo model. Irina Ionesco's
erotic photographs of her young daughter Eva have been a source of
controversy since they first appeared in the 1970s. Eva also modeled for other photographers such as
Jacques Bourboulon. She is the youngest model ever to appear in a
Playboy nude pictorial, since she was featured at age 11 in the October 1976 issue of the Italian edition of the magazine in a set by Bourboulon. In that picture, she posed nude at a beach. Another of her nude pictorials, in the November 1978 issue of the Spanish edition of
Penthouse, was a selection of her mother's photographs. She also appeared on the cover page of
Der Spiegel at the age of 12 completely nude. The issue was later expunged from the magazine's records. She made her film début at the age of 11 in 1976, playing a child in
Roman Polanski's film
The Tenant. A short time later she was cast in films of the mid-1970s such as
Maladolescenza (also known as
Puppy Love). In the 1980s, Ionesco attended the prestigious acting school
Amandiers, directed by
Patrice Chéreau and . Eva claimed her story served as inspiration for
Louis Malle's film
Pretty Baby. Ionesco again paired with
Isabelle Huppert for her next film,
Golden Youth, about a young couple in Paris who begin to spend time with a much older and wealthier couple.
Writing career In 2015 Ionesco's husband
Simon Liberati released a
book about their courtship and her
childhood called
Eva. In 2017 Ionesco released her first book,
Innocence, which dealt with her fractured relationship with her father. ==Legal disputes==